| Nixon, | the Media | and Watergate |
| By Robert Culpepper HST-480 Modern America | ||
If in the 20th century there is an event as talked about and with as many
implications for the American people as World War II, that event must be the
'Watergate' scandal. By mentioning the very word 'Watergate' one conjures up
images of political conspiracy, cover-ups and the resignation of an American
President with doses of espionage worthy of an Ian Flemming novel. The
Watergate scandal seems so ingrained in the American psyche that it is hard
to remember America without Watergate, and at times one can easily believe
that all children born since the scandal have some inherited knowledge of
the event. Even with the death of its most prominent victim, Richard M,
Nixon, Watergate has continued to live and has taken on a life of its own,
independent of the unwitting collaboration between the White House and media
which brought it into existence.
People more than ever today, cite Watergate as the watershed event that
proved people could not trust their elected officials. What many people do
not realize is that it took more than just the media, or the White House or
Congress to make Watergate the monolith it grew to be. Taking a look at the
events leading up to, including and after the Watergate scandal it is clear
that the media, the Nixon White House and the Congress, in an unwitting
partnership, gave life to a scandal that would cause Americans to look at
their elected officials and government with cynicism and that would set an
accepted trend in journalism for more than twenty years.
The relationship that was to emerge between the Nixon White House and the
media during Watergate was not an odd occurrence by any means. It is
important to keep in mind that Richard Nixon never liked the press, or the
media in general, and likewise the media did not hold Richard Nixon
in reverence. The relationship between Nixon and the press was that Nixon
viewed them as enemies and many people in the media were content to do
likewise.4 Nixon also blamed the entire
news system for his public relations problems dating back to the time before
he was Eisenhower's Vice-President.4
During his first term in office, Nixon had done his best to rout out the
press corps in the White House of his enemies and consequently leading up to
the Watergate break in, the press amazingly strived to be neutral, hoping to
keep their privileges, sources and access.4
To the press, newspapers and magazines, and the media in general, radio and
television, not having access to the white House and Washington insiders
would have been the same as a human without oxygen, quite simply they could
not have survived.
With the media in essentially in between a rock and hardplace, it is easy to
see why many not only strived to be neutral, but also discouraged their
aggressive correspondents from following up on leads that may have upset the
White House. Additionally, the media while not being true fans of Richard
Nixon were definitely not fond of the 1972 Democratic contender for
President, George McGovern and the majority of newspapers and publishers
endorsed Nixon over McGovern. Of course, the media was not entirely
comfortable with objective reporting or the White House's pressure on the
media to report objectively. Soon the media would have ample opportunity to
take Nixon to task. As Theodore White said "No President can tamper with the
media, except at his own peril."4
On June 17th, 1972 at 2 a.m. five men were caught in the 6th floor offices of
the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate office building in
Washington DC.2 This future event of
inescapable proportions initially appeared on the back pages of what papers
it ran in, because another robbery in Washington DC was nothing new.
3 Most of the papers that did cover the
break in saw it as a minor partisan caper, and gave equal space to opposing
sides. This 'twinning' as it was called, giving Democrats room to charge
Republicans with wrong doing and giving Republicans equal space to
dismiss and deny the charges lessened the impact of the allegations at first.
The Washington Post though broke away from the general trend of the other
papers when two of their reporters, Woodward and Bernstein, first traced the
Watergate burglary to the White House on June 19th.4
Woodward, who did the crime beat in Washington, and Bernstein, who covered
Virginia politics, were used to having sources leaked to them and soon
realized that Watergate was not just a simple burglary.1
With a little digging Woodward and Bernstein discovered that 5 of the men who
had been caught in the in the Watergate Building; Baker, Sturgis, Martinet,
Gonzalez and McCord as well as two other involved in the crime, Howard Hunt
and Garden Liddy, had several ties to Republican National Committee as well
as Nixon's re-election committee CREP.2
With these revelations coming out in the Washington Post, surprisingly
many if not most papers continued to stand back from the issue, leaving the
Post out on its own. Despite attacks from critics though, the publishers and
editors of the Post stood by Woodward and Bernstein and the story continued.
Although after some initial discoveries, the duo of Woodward and Bernstein
relied on straight objective news accounts to continue their reporting.
1
Woodward soon unveiled a new source which gave him insights into the Nixon
administration's handling of the Watergate affair, 'Deep Throat', who many
believe was a conglomeration of bureaucrats and Nixon associates who resented
how the Nixon administration had handled the whole mess.
1
Up until this time, what little coverage there was of Watergate outside of
the Post did not attract much attention, and was easy for Americans to skip
because quite simply it did not directly affect them.
With these new revelations, the heat got raised on the White House, as
administration officials tried to put pressure on the Post to drop the story
by threatening not to renew licenses of several Post owned t.v. stations,
the story of the Watergate break in hit the front pages of newspapers across
the country.3 Adding to the problems
facing the Nixon White House was the fact that several aides began to slip-up
and reveal information they should not have. The classic example of this was
when Alexander Butterfield, testifying before Senator Sam Ervin's committee
investigating Watergate, revealed that Nixon routinely taped phone calls
coming into the Oval Office.3
Congress by this time had been conducting an investigation of its own that
unearthed many of the facts that Woodward and Bernstein had earlier, but
since they were televised they grabbed an audience the Post could not and
Watergate became more relevant.
Adding to the troubles for the Nixon White House was the fact that one of
the accused, who had been convicted by this time, James McCord started
talking to Judge John J. Sirca. In a letter, which Sirca released soon
after receiving, McCord wrote that he and other defendants had been under
pressure to plead guilty and remain silent, that people 'high-up' were
involved in the situation and that perjury had been committed at the trial.
1
Soon after Sirca released the letter, McCord started talking to the judge
and told what he knew. This loss of control over information had a definite
effect at the White House, On April 30th, without much explanation,
President Nixon announced the resignation of White House counsel John Dean
as well as the resignation of aides Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Kleindienst.
2
The departure of the White House counsel and his top aides did not turn out
to mean an easier time for the White House where Watergate was concerned.
Under increasing pressure, Nixon's new Attorney General Elliot Richardson,
who was appointed after April 30th assigned a special persecutor, Archibald
Cox, to look into the Watergate question on May 25th.2
Cox proceeded to ask Nixon to turn over the tapes that Butterfield had
mentioned before the Ervin committee. When Nixon refused to turn the tapes
over, citing executive privilege, Cox went to the courts to force Nixon to
hand over the tapes, which in turn caused a new escalation of the story in
the news media. At the same time, testimony before the Ervin committee was
jeopardized when many witnesses from the executive branch refused to appear
citing the elusive executive privilege. Irritated by the grandstanding
Senator Ervin then threatened contempt of Congress for any executive branch
official who refused to testify before the Watergate committee on the
grounds of 'executive privilege'.1
With the Senate Investigating Watergate on television, and with the Attorney
General and special prosecutor trying to force Nixon to surrender his taped
conversations, the media was naturally covering everything. By this time,
the television and print media were saturated with stories telling of Nixon's
re-election campaign operations and revealing other beak-ins as well as
allegations of sabotage, dirty tricks, wiretaps and extensive cover-ups of
wrong doings.2
Attorney General Richardson, and special prosecutor Fox kept pushing Nixon
to hand over his tapes as the courts pursued the matter, but they would not
do that for long. In October of 1973, Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Cox,
and Richardson resigned instead and Nixon fired Cox in what came to be known
as the Saturday Night Massacre which included other shakeups within the
White House.2
Naturally, this caused a great amount of uproar in the
country and the media capitalized on it. A poll published in national
newspapers in November of 1973 found that 60% of Americans did not think
Nixon was handling the Presidency capably, and in reeks to pass the 60%
figure would drop dramatically.1
Even as President Nixon saw his public approval numbers dropping, he faced
even more hitting criticism from not only a Senate committee anxious to hear
his taped conversations, but from the editors of newspapers nationwide.
Newspaper editorials in papers and magazines like the New York Times, Time
and even the Nixon loyalist Detroit News began calling on Nixon to resign as
a service to the public.1
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, which had been hearing the case of whether or
not Nixon had to turn over his taped conversations, ruled that indeed the
President had to release his tapes to the Senate committee investigating
Watergate.
Reluctantly, president Nixon handed over the tapes to the Senate committee
in small batches. When transcripts of the tapes were released to the public
pieces of conversations were missing in several places, replaced by the
phrase 'expletive deleted' and it appeared that 18 minutes of crucial
conversations had somehow been erased.3
The new information from the tapes, coupled with the Senate's continuing
probe into the case increased the public's sentiment that the President had
done something very wrong. The Senate hearing continued into the Spring of
74, and that Summer the House judiciary Committee approved three resolutions
of impeachment for obstruction of justice, abuse of Presidential power and
violation by the President of his oath of office.3
Faced by impeachment, and citing that the country needed a full time
President and Congress, President Richard M. Nixon became the first
President to resign from his office on August 9th,
1974.
The resignation of President Nixon did not't by any stretch of the
imagination signal the end of Watergate. In fact, Watergate had it's most
felt impact after the resignation of Richard Nixon from the Presidency, in
the form of a cynicism that pervades American politics to this day. The
greatest affect, outside of the electorate, was on the media. Investigative
reporting became more popular than ever as the pursuit of scandal became
synonymous with the pursuit of news, and 'gate' was attached to all scandals
since. As Rolling stone magazine said in May of 1987, "All reporters want..
to take down the government." The media did not do this alone though. The
Senate's investigation, coupled with government officials unhappy with
Nixon's handling of the affair releasing damning evidence gave Americans an
unpleasant view of their government. Quite simply, Watergate was a testament
to unwitting teamwork between sides that saw themselves as mutual enemies.